Nowruz on Mira
by NullNoMore
Summary: Written for the XCXSpringCollab. Roo is celebrating the New Year with Thirza the OC. There will be explosions, because somebody crashes the party. All the good things belong to Monolithsoft, and Roo is my dork of a Cross.


**a/n: Written for XCXSpringCollab on the bird site. Roo is celebrating Persian New Years with Thirza the OC. It does not go well.**

**Silliness. IF I HAVE MESSED SOMETHING UP OR MISSPELLED SOMETHING PLEASE PING ME BECAUSE I WANT TO GET IT RIGHT.**

**All the glorious aliens belong to Monolith Soft. Only Roo and Thirza are my fault.**

* * *

Thirza was too old to be running for her life on a Spring evening. Her legs weren't what they once were, in more ways than she wanted to recall. They used to be longer, for example. More muscular. More able to keep her from sliding disastrously down a hillside in an attempt to escape doom.

She settled for leaning into a slide. The rocks tore into her hip as she slithered down the steepest part of the path cut into the cliff-side. If her best pair of slacks were wrecked from today's disaster, she was going to kill a certain Pathfinder. She reached a platform underneath a slight overhang and crouched, waiting for the next blast.

"Whoo hoo!" A lanky grey-haired man landed with a bounce beside her. He stood in the open, gawking into the sky. "I think it gave up."

Thirza chose to remain under the limited cover. She looked out wildly, trying to spot the enemy. It was hard to decide where to look, since their attacker was acting radically against its normal pattern. Usually you only met an irate Levitath when flying at higher altitudes. Thirza's Nowruz picnic had been on a cliff overlooking the city, but it was nothing as high up as the usual range of those floating sacks of gas, yet one of them had crashed her party. Literally.

At the first ether blast, Thirza had rejected the thought of fighting it. The range of its attacks was greater than she could counter from the ground, even with careful preparation. She'd only brought limited weaponry anyway, just enough to nudge a few smaller indigenous animals from her selected spot. She'd been more focused on hauling everything else in preparation for the New Year's celebration: rugs and pillows for everyone to relax on, a growing selection of tasty food for the swelling guest list, gifts for the younger participants, a family text she'd brought from Earth.

She'd asked other members of New Los Angeles to bring parts of the _haft seen_. Lin was making the pudding, with the dubious aid of her Nopon sidekick, Tatsu. Hope had promised to find olives. The human-Prone newlyweds Leroy and Lavina, apples. The Orphe Mon'barac, sumac leaves. She'd asked another pair, the Ma-non Nococche and her dear friend, a Zaruboggan named Atheron, to make vinegar; Thirza had needed to emphasize repeatedly that the vinegar should be tangy but not deadly. She had been a little nervous about the last alien she had invited, Na Zain, and about the simple assignment she had given him. Na Zain was becoming something of a celebrity chef in New Los Angeles, but the Wrothian had nodded his leonine head with pleasure when she asked if he would bring garlic. To her delight, he'd also offered to bring some of his famous curry.

There were more types of aliens in NLA than even this generous sampling, but there was a limit to how big a picnic Thirza felt comfortable hosting. But the New Year's celebration had grown in spite of her restraint. Along the way, guests had invited more guests, and some guests had invited themselves. The man panting and grinning next to her was one of the latter. She hadn't assigned him a food to bring, no matter how much he begged to be a participant. How he knew that there was a seventh ingredient to bring was a wonder. But Thirza had stood firm. Roo had a reputation for being unreliable, which would never do. The seventh item she would bring herself: a thick stand of green wheat shoots growing in a shallow dish. She'd brought a stock of those seeds with her on the journey from Earth, and every holiday she used a precious handful to grow the _sabzeh_, to symbolize her wishes for health and cleanliness in the coming year. Roo could bring a more decorative but non-essential object.

Now it was smashed to pieces on the cliff above them, scattered with all of her preparations. At least the attack had happened before any of the guests had arrived. Nothing mattered when you considered their safety. Nothing. Thirza took heart. She was safe, her guests were safe, even Roo.

Thirza did one more sweep of the sky. To her relief, she spotted the now peaceful levitath gliding away from the area, gracefully oaring through the sky with its four enormous translucent wings. Then she turned to glare at Roo.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

Roo grinned and shrugged. "Many things?"

"I ASKED YOU TO BRING A GOLDFISH! THAT'S ALL! A GOLDFISH!"

"Well ..."

"SMALL! TINY! LIVES IN A BOWL! !"

"Mira doesn't have goldfish." Roo rocked on his heels. "I improvised."

"YOU LURED A DEADLY TYRANT INDIGEN TO MY PICNIC! AHHHHHHHRRRRGGGHHHHhhhhhghhh." Thirza's unshakable nature was returning. She took a deep breath and shook her head. "You have got to be the dumbest Pathfinder on Mira."

"I've seen worse."

She stared at him before agreeing. "Too true. Second dumbest." She sighed and peered up the hill. "I guess there's nothing to it but to see if anything can be salvaged."

"Don't bother. Everything was wiped out, pow boom pewpewpew kablooey. Flat like a pancake."

"You are enjoying this a little too much. Still, I want to check."

"Trust me. I stuck around long enough to make sure. That's why you managed to beat me down the hill. Plus, I wanted to grab these." Roo arched his back and grabbed blindly behind himself, then held out his treasure with both hands.

Her father's Quran and a pot of slightly mashed wheat grass. Which was definitely more mashed after Thirza finished strangle-hugging Roo.

* * *

**a/n: Nawruz is the New Year's holiday celebrated on March 21, mostly but not exclusively Persian, with variations of what you do and how you celebrate it. Where I grew up, not far from Old Los Angeles, families would hold picnics for a week afterwards in the park or by the beach, all with the little pots of green sprouts. Nice memories.**


End file.
